The living room looked like a toy shop had been robbed.
Wrapping paper covered half the rug. A box lay upside down near the coffee table. Another had somehow ended up beneath the sofa. Kashi sat in the middle of it all with one leg tucked beneath her, watching Lucas tear into his fourth gift with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb.
"Careful."
"I am being careful." He ripped the paper clean down the middle.
Kashi looked at the destruction.
Lucas gasped. "Oh!" He dragged out a remote-controlled car and held it above his head. "It's the limited one!"
"You like it?" Kashi asked. "I heard it's trendy among kids your age."
Slowly, his mouth fell open. "You knew?"
Kashi laughed.
Lucas immediately dropped onto his knees and began attacking the packaging. "Why do they put this much plastic on everything? What if someone is in a hurry?" He finally freed the car and shoved the box aside.
The coffee table was already crowded with snacks. Popcorn. Biscuits. Chocolate. A bowl of cut fruit Kashi had insisted on because apparently adulthood required occasionally pretending nutrition mattered.
Lucas had ignored the fruit completely. A SpongeBob cartoon played on the television, loud enough to fill the room without demanding anyone's attention.
SpongeBob was currently shouting about friendship while Squidward ignored him.
Neither of them had followed the plot for at least twenty minutes.
Lucas drove the car across the rug. It crashed straight into the coffee-table leg. He gasped as though the furniture had deliberately stepped into traffic.
Kashi reached for a piece of popcorn. "Careful. Don't break anything."
Lucas pointed at her. "You underestimate my problem-causing skills, Kashi."
Five minutes later, he abandoned the car for another gift. Then another. By the time he was done, he had accumulated enough things around himself to establish a small independent country.
Kashi leaned back against the sofa. Lucas climbed up beside her with a packet of biscuits and immediately dragged the blanket over both of them.
"No crumbs."
"I don't make crumbs. "He bit into a biscuit. Three crumbs landed on the blanket.
Kashi looked down. Lucas followed her gaze. He quickly picked one up and ate it.
Kashi stared at him.
"What crumb?"
She burst out laughing. Lucas grinned and shuffled closer. The cartoon changed episodes. Somewhere on-screen, someone began singing. Lucas began talking. He told her about school. About a boy in his class who had lied about owning a snake.
"He said it was huge."
"How huge?"
Lucas stretched both arms as far apart as the blanket allowed. "This huge."
Kashi looked at him. "That is not a snake. Are you sure he didn't have something else?"
"I knew he was lying," Lucas scoffed. "His mum is scared of worms." Then he moved on to his teacher. Then football. Then a girl who had borrowed his pencil and returned it bitten.
"She chewed it, Kashi."
Kashi slowly turned her head."I hope you reported her."
Lucas shrugged. "I decided she can't borrow another one. "He kept going. Apparently, Jude had tried making pancakes the previous Sunday and burned three. Lucas had also recently decided he wanted either a dog, a lizard or a younger brother, depending on which one required less cleaning.
Kashi listened.
She asked questions when he paused. Remembered names from stories he had told her weeks ago. Laughed when he exaggerated. Corrected him when the exaggeration became physically impossible. Lucas never seemed to notice how carefully she paid attention.
He simply talked because she listened.
At some point, his head found her shoulder. The talking continued. Slower now.
"…and then Uncle Dante said I wasn't allowed to touch his watch, but I only touched it once."
"You broke the clasp." Kashi looked down at him. "He loves that watch."
"He said the same thing, but mean."
Kashi smiled. Lucas yawned, his whole face scrunching with it. "Tired?
""Mm." He shifted lower beneath the blanket. The cartoon continued flickering across the television. Lucas pulled the fabric up to his chin. Then higher. Until only his eyes were visible. A sleepy little laugh escaped him. He wriggled down until his head rested in Kashi's lap. She adjusted the blanket automatically. His hand still held half a biscuit.
Kashi carefully removed it before he crushed it into the sofa. Lucas mumbled something. His eyes were already closed. Kashi looked down. His breathing softened almost immediately. One minute. Maybe two. Gone.
Kashi stayed where she was. The cartoon played on. The living room remained a disaster of opened boxes, abandoned toys and wrapping paper. She could have called someone to clean it. Could have carried him upstairs. Could have moved.
She didn't .Instead, Kashi rested one hand lightly against his hair. Lucas shifted once in his sleep, turning slightly towards her. Her expression softened. Nothing for anyone else to see. Kashi simply watched him. And let him sleep.
💜~~~~~~~~~
Chaos stood behind his desk, one hand resting against the edge while Xavier delivered the report.
"The entire shipment was intercepted."
Chaos looked up. "Intercepted?"
"Yes, Young Master. By the authorities."
Chaos straightened. Those two words did not belong together. The shipment containing drugs and marijuana should have arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday.
Club X and the Underworld made most of their money through trafficking drugs for high-value clients, and when Club X was established, its main purpose was to make that business flow more efficiently. Methamphetamine. Cocaine. Marijuana. Even the highly sought-after fentanyl.
The real profit of Club X had never come from the bodies crowding its dance floor or the random customers drinking themselves senseless at the bar. Ecstasy moved freely through the club. Cocaine belonged to the private rooms upstairs, where wealthy clients paid for discretion almost as much as they paid for the sin itself.
Methamphetamine belonged to a darker market entirely. And fentanyl? That was not something offered casually. To the public, Club X was music, alcohol, flashing lights and expensive entertainment.
To Chaos and Alex, it was infrastructure. A place where money changed hands, powerful people indulged their vices, and business continued beneath the noise without the dancing crowd ever realising what was happening around them.
For years, they had been able to moved product without government interference, and one man had made that possible.
Senator Makil Vross.
The arrangement had existed long before Chaos took control of X Holdings.
Vross had influence where the Underworld required doors to remain open and questions to remain unasked. In return, the Underworld provided money, protection and enough political leverage to keep his career comfortably alive.
Marijuana was only one part of it. It was grown across hidden farms in different parts of the world, harvested, dried and shipped to high-value clients every three months. Two trucks bound for Spain had already been intercepted. Chaos had ignored the first loss, wanting confirmation that the remaining routes were untouched. Then another shipment had been seized at the docks in Tel Aviv, the containers taken before they could be cleared.
By the fucking authorities.
Chaos walked around the desk. "Those shipments were supposed to be delivered yesterday."
Xavier said nothing. Chaos stopped beside the window. Too many years. Too many successful movements. Too many people who knew exactly when not to look. Something like that did not suddenly get discovered by accident.
Unless—
"Someone tipped them off." Chaos said.
"That is my suspicion as well, sir."
Chaos stared through the glass. Cars moved far below, tiny and insignificant, crawling through the city. "A few minor interceptions, I can allow." He slipped one hand into his pocket. "But the containers in Tel Aviv cost a fortune."
He had lived long enough to know coincidence was usually betrayal waiting for evidence.
"Where's Vross?"
"He should be landing in the country by tomorrow afternoon." Xavier calmly poured fresh coffee into Chaos's cup and held it out. "Should I send one of the men?"
Chaos finally turned and accepted it. "No. Send Alex."
Xavier waited.
"Vross is a shrewd man. If one of our men goes, he won't receive him. He'll consider it an insult." Chaos lifted the cup. "Let's give him an honored meeting."
A slight inclination of Xavier's head. "Understood."
Chaos remained by the window. Quiet. Thinking. Then his mouth curved faintly.
Humans really were greedy creatures. Give a man enough to change his life and eventually he would decide he deserved enough to own yours.
💜~~~~~~
Senator Makil Vross lived exactly as Alex expected a politician to live. Expensively. Tastefully and with absolutely no indication that any of it had been purchased honestly.
Alex glanced around the sitting room as the butler ushered him in. Marble. Original paintings. Furniture nobody was supposed to sit on.
A chandelier large enough to kill several people if dropped correctly. He approved of the chandelier.
"Please wait here, sir. Mr Vross will be with you shortly." The butler bowed and left.
Alex settled into a chair. No drink, then. Got it.
Apparently, he wasn't a worthy guest.
A few minutes later, Vross entered.
Alex looked at him. The senator was in his late fifties, broad through the middle, silver beginning to overtake the dark hair at his temples. His suit was immaculate. His expression was not.
"You're late."
Alex checked his watch."Mr Vross."
Senator Vross's jaw tightened as he took the chair opposite him. A member of staff appeared with a tray holding wine and two glasses. She poured for both men, set the bottle down and left without a word.
Alex took his glass. "How are you, Senator?"
Vross gave a humourless chuckle. "Do I look like I accepted this meeting for conversation?"
"No." Alex settled back. "You look constipated."
Vross stared at him. Alex stared back. A clock ticked somewhere behind them. Eventually, the senator leaned forward.
"We have a problem, Alex. Your people have become careless."
Alex's expression remained pleasant. "My people?"
"The shipment."
"Ah." He crossed one ankle over his knee. "That shipment.
"Vross's mouth twisted. "Do you understand the kind of attention this could bring?" His palm struck the armrest. "I have spent years protecting your operations."
Alex's gaze dropped briefly to the hand. Then returned to his face. "And you have been compensated very generously for it."
"That arrangement no longer works for me."
There it was. Alex tilted his head.
"The political environment has changed," Vross continued. "Elections are coming. People need convincing. Alliances need maintaining. I can no longer back you up."
"Senator." Alex's smile disappeared. "State exactly what you want and stop beating around the fucking bush. I have other places to be."
Vross's face hardened. "I'm running a new campaign. Campaigns cost money."
"Congratulations." Alex lifted his glass slightly. "So do divorces. Get to the number."
Vross's eyes narrowed. "Sixty-eight million euros."
Silence.
Alex scoffed. "Sixty-eight?"
"You heard me."
"I did. I was hoping my English had failed."
Vross did not react.
Alex dragged his thumb slowly along his lower lip. "Sixty-eight million is a lot of money to keep buying your silence."
"Don't insult me."Vross leaned forward. "You think I don't know what you people can afford?"
Alex went still.
The senator continued. "Do you have any idea how many years I have spent keeping eyes away from your business? How many people I have spoken to? How many careers I have put on the line?"
Alex smiled. "And somehow you survived all those terrible sacrifices with several houses."
Vross's expression darkened.
Alex glanced around. "Nice chandelier, by the way."
"Stop fucking with me."
Alex looked back at him. Again. That strange little thing humans did when they had borrowed power for so long they eventually forgot it was borrowed.
Vross rose. "I want sixty-eight million by the end of Wednesday. And if I don't get it?" Something almost satisfied touched the senator's face. "Then perhaps more shipments might become unfortunate."
Ah.
Alex stared at him. Not proof. But close enough to smell.
Vross adjusted one cuff. "You people have used my influence for years. Now I intend to be paid what that influence is worth."
Alex gave a quiet laugh. It was never enough with them. Perhaps that was why he understood humans so well.
Greed recognised its own.
Alex rose.
Vross was still speaking. "You'll take my offer back."
"It wasn't an offer." Alex frowned.
"Call it whatever the fuck you want." Vross stepped closer. "Now run along like the messenger dog you are and deliver the news to your master."
Silence.
Alex looked at him. The room became extraordinarily still. Then Alex smiled. Polite. Warm, even. "Of course, Senator."
Something about the answer made Vross hesitate.
Alex finished the drink in his glass. "I'll make sure he hears every word."
Greed was such an ugly thing. Especially on other people.